As improvements in transplantation of human organs advance, there is a growing need for preserving a donated organ until it is transplanted. Because the location of the organ at the time of donation may be a considerable distance from the location where the transplant is to be made, it is necessary to preserve the organ while transporting it to, or holding it at, the place of transplant. Heretofore several efforts have been made, as represented by the following United States Patents, to preserve donated organs and in some instances to allow for the transportation of the donated organ, but, for the most part, such prior art devices have not been wholly satisfactory for several reasons. Patent disclosures representative of such art are as follows, U.S. Pat. Nos.:
3,881,990 PA1 3,935,065 PA1 4,186,565 PA1 4,242,883 PA1 4,299,919 PA1 4,395,492 PA1 4,411,652 PA1 4,462,215 PA1 4,471,629 PA1 4,473,637 PA1 4,494,385
My research has indicated that the prior art has failed to adequately address the problem of providing a compact, highly mobile and essentially self-contained machine which will permit the preservation of a donated organ, such as a human kidney, for the time required to transport it to the donee's location and which controls the temperature, pressure and flow rate of the perfusate and provides suitable alarms when operating conditions depart from the prescribed parameters.